This week the blog is sponsored by Mile One Mission, which is committed to planting Gospel-centered, Christ-exalting churches in North America’s least-churched area.
The Need:
In many circles, Canada and the United States are considered “Christian Countries.” Regardless of what you think of that phrase or its truth, we can assure you that there are parts of the western world that lack the gospel. And that is certainly the situation that we find ourselves in here in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The reality is that this province needs the gospel and it needs gospel-centered churches. Its capital city, St. John’s, has less than 1% of the population attending an evangelical church on a Sunday.
Who We Are:
Mile One Mission is a church planting ministry created by a local church, Calvary Baptist. By God’s grace, our goal is to plant neighbourhood churches centered around the gospel to reach the neighbourhoods in our city and across our province. These churches will in turn be a part of the Mile One Mission network, which means that they will work together for the purpose of spreading the gospel in this city. Our plan is to send teams of 4-5 people with their families into the neighbourhood and start a church from the ground up with the support of the network. The planting teams will consist of a lead church planter along with male and female interns who will all live and work in the target neighbourhoods.
For us, this is a strategic move because of where we are. Newfoundlanders are a special kind of people shaped by the ruggedly beautiful province we call home. Newfoundland and her people are full of culture and personality. Yet because of that culture, in addition to being hardworking, loyal, kind, generous, and friendly, Newfoundlanders can also be suspicious. In order to win the trust of the people, we need a long-term plan and people who are willing to be a part of a church plant, and a neighbourhood, for the long term.
How You Can Help:
If you are interested in supporting our ministry to plant churches here in St. John’s, please consider praying, giving, or coming. For any kind of revival here in St. John’s we need God to work and we need prayer for our city and our staff. Of course, we also need financial partnerships to help fund this ministry. Our goal is to get 100 churches in Canada to give $100 a month and to get 200 American churches to give $200 a month. If we can develop enough partnerships this would allow us to fully fund up to 5 churches with their planters, until the difficult work of planting a church is done. Finally, we need more people to come and be a part of our church planting teams. If you feel called to plant a church or to be a part of planting a church, would you pray and consider coming to Newfoundland?
For more information please visit our website and Facebook page. You can also email us directly at [email protected]. And if you would like to keep up to date with our videos, check out our Vimeo page.
To see more of Newfoundland, check out this video by Tim Challies.
